Gregg Popovich's case as the biggest coach in NBA history: Spurs Legende has cut a unique way to five titles

What makes a great basketball coach? If the answer is simply “a trainer who wins the most”, then the biggest coach in the NBA story is Phil Jackson. The Zen master has more seasons with a championship (11) than without one (nine).

Is the answer innovation to promote the art of sport? If this is the case, Red Auerbach is probably our choice. He laid the foundation stone for much of what modern basketball would become during his Boston Celtics dynasty, which invented the concept of the sixth man and the fast breakbreaking was groundbreaking.

Or maybe a great basketball coach is someone who can win with any players. That would bring Pat Riley into the conversation. He led a Showtime Laker dynasty, which was based on speed and finesse before turning completely in defense and toughness in New York and Miami. If John Starks in game 7 of the 1994 NBA Finals had not become cold, Riley would be the only coach who wins with three teams championships.

In one of these cases you can pierce holes if you want. Jackson had Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, who would all have been legends with or without him. Auerbach was the first, but that doesn't mean that he was absolutely the best. It is easier to innovate in an eight team league in the infancy. Riley took over a Lakers team who had already won a championship and whose identity had already been set up.

Destil coaching except for its essence and the results of less than the process. The Dictionary definition of a trainer is “a sports teacher or trainer”. Coaching teaches essentially. It takes a player and helps you to become the best version of yourself to bring him to the best possible position in order to be successful. And nobody did it better than Gregg Popovich, who On Friday he terminated after 29 seasons as head coach of Spurs. He has certainly trained his share of superstars. David Robinson was firmly anchored in San Antonio when he arrived and Tim Duncan would have thrived everywhere. But most of his nuclear tracks were not sure.

Nobody wanted international players when Popovich designed Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili at the end of the second time. Popovich was ahead of the curve, but did not receive enough recognition for the coaching of her strengths. The era of the NBA that they had entered was defined by slow, swaying criminal offense. Isolation scorer that beat the rock. Anathema to everyone who grew up in the wide helmet in the Fiba competition. His early Spurs teams lived and died in the post office. They would grow much more European, whip the ball around the place at an exciting pace and routinely transform good shots into great shots.

Parker and Ginobili would have been good in a normal team. They were great in the Spurs and able to feed on the collective genius they shared with Duncan. In the end, her connection was practically telepathic. Their final of 2014 is the famous highlight in which they crushed LeBron James and Sternmiami Heat with the perhaps the largest five-game display in the history of sport, but it was only possible for over a decade that he had been dealing in the contours of a practical popovic in a decade. They do not come to 2014 without 2002 and 2005 and 2007. Baby steps became world record sprints while their contemporaries were still comfortable.

It was based on the lack of ego, something that Popovich either searched for or successfully taught in the players, but a principle that he lived himself. He gave his offense to his guards and they gave him the nice game. Ginobili was at his best with the ball, so he came from the bank, so that San Antonio would never be on the ground without one of his ladder. Veterans arrived in San Antonio and played a way and went as completely different players.

Bruce Bowen practically invented the 3-and-D archetype, which now defines how sub-star NBA wings should play, but that was not what it was. Bowen tried only 152 3 in four college seasons. He took more of them than he came to the NBA, but rarely the right ones. In five seasons with the Celtics and the heat, he hovered around 40% of his 3-pointers from the corners. In eight Spurs seasons, this number rose to 84%. Popovich found his shot and Bowen eagerly took him. How many Castoffs have houses in San Antonio found that did the same? Cleveland did without Danny Green after only one year. The Spurs were eagerly shoveling and had their next 3-and-D-Maestro.

Kawhi Leonard was reversed. The Spurs designed him in 15th place in the hope that one day he could become another bowling or green. He already had the defensive chops, but he was a 25 %protect in college. Chip Engelland, now the shooting coach in Oklahoma City and then an assistant to the Spurs, is widely attributed to the fixing of Leonard's sweater, but Leonard was not a jumper from fame at that time. Popovich allowed him to explore his game in the current flying to grow organically without bringing him into the role he was originally filling. The Spurs steered their players in the right direction, but may be changed the course.

His 19-year partnership with Duncan was ultimately the biggest factor for his success in San Antonio, but everything else he did correctly flowed out of this union. He never trained Duncan differently than the last player on his bank and authorized her to feel her as a MVP team as they knew that they were kept the same standard he was. It created an environment of cooperation and the victim, which made it possible for every player to find his best even in the context of the best of the team.

It was almost an ongoing joke in which the player was involved. Do yourself a favor and read draft classes that were published by Duncan-Parker-Segoobili at the end of the era, because until then San Antonios methods have been so implicitly familiar that practically any choice you made was complained about by other teams. “How did we ______ drop the Spurs at the end of the first round?” The name was hardly important. Kyle Anderson. Dejounte Murray. Derrick White. They all exceeded their design positions very much because the Spurs, as everyone knew, were better equipped to extract their talent than any other. Use a talented player in San Antonio and a certain degree of success was practically inevitable.

Popovich is the common denominator in all players that we have covered. They played different positions and come for different backgrounds, but everyone had what we probably agree with the best possible version of their career because it was managed by him. That differentiates him from his colleagues. Jackson will be inseparable from Jordan forever. Auerbach to Bill Russell. They certainly have their share of outsiders' success stories, and there is obviously such a connection between Popovich and Duncan.

But no trainer ever had a greater track record in helping a broader variety of players with a variety of backgrounds and skills and positions that can optimally use their career. No coach has ever done a better job to enable his non-stars to be successful than he was. No coach has ever done more for the players who cost his team less than Popovich. Where he brings him to your personal list of the greatest coaches of all time, depending on the definition, it will be subjective. But no coach has ever taught the game at a higher level, while he has his message, especially to the student as a popovich. If this defines you a great trainer, then there has never been a better one.